Cost Cutting in Business Journalism

January 6th, 2011

The recession of 2009 has taken its toll on all of us, but for business journalism it greatly escalated the erosion that was already well underway.

Publishers are experimenting with new business approaches like pay-walls, paid mobile applications and hybrid editorial/ad models like Forbes’ AdVoice, but there is no widely agreed-upon model to restore the link between content and earnings.

It’s clear that companies and public relations professionals have to work much harder and smarter to persuade fewer reporters with less time, bigger workloads and more responsibility to take interest in what they have to say.

NEWSPAPERS

Daily circulation has dropped by 26% since 2000—from 55.8 million to 41.3 million

Newsroom workforce has decreased by 26%USA Today laid off 9% of staff in Aug 2010.Salt Lake City Desert News had a 43% staff reduction.New York Times cut salaries and reduced staff by 8%.
Even the Wall Street Journal reduced staff.